The eerily quiet lull on Li’l Abner Mobile Home Park’s 112th Avenue is routinely interrupted by the clang of a demolition crane. In just four months, half of the mobile home park in Sweetwater, Florida, has been razed to the ground. An old hibiscus bush nurtured by one family for decades is gone. A handful of mobile homes sparsely populates the once-packed community, giving way to a towering new development and leaving ample space for its inevitable replicas across what used to be affordable housing.

Despite an ongoing class-action lawsuit, tenants have chosen to evacuate their own homes before a May 19 deadline in order to secure a bigger payout. In response, a group of residents is running for one of seven Sweetwater city commissioner seats in the May 13 election to uproot the elected officials whose oversight they say landed them in this precarious position.

From displacement to accountability

When Li’l Abner residents received their eviction notices in November last year, it felt like the end of a chapter. For one resident, Mario Leiva, however, it marked the beginning of a political campaign aimed at turning displacement into accountability.

“I’m not a politician. I never thought I’d run for office,” said Leiva, a Nicaraguan-born teacher and six-year resident of Li’l Abner. “But when no one takes responsibility for a mistake this big, someone has to step up and say: Enough.”

The 67-year-old candidate, who once taught in San Francisco before relocating to Miami for health reasons, now finds himself at the center of a grassroots campaign for city commissioner. Fueled by what supporters describe as negligence, broken promises, and regulatory failures, the campaign is rooted in the fight for housing justice and government transparency.

At the heart of the issue is a rezoning decision that allowed developer Urban Group and property owner CREI Holdings to replace the longstanding mobile home park with a high-density apartment complex marketed as “affordable housing.” However, units in the new apartments built on the property are expected to rent for $2,000 to $3,000, according to Realtor.com, a figure far out of reach for many Li’l Abner residents, who were paying around $800 a month for their lots.

“This was never about giving people better housing,” Leiva said. “It was about removing poor people quietly and letting developers cash in.”

The class-action lawsuit alleges that Li’l Abner’s owner failed to provide proper notice as required by Florida law and misrepresented plans for the property to prospective buyers. According to a Florida statute, the property owner must provide written notice to the homeowners’ association of its right to purchase the mobile home park first. 

CREI Holdings offered $14,000 to residents who agreed to vacate by mid-January and $7,000 to those who left by April. Those who stayed until May will receive $3,000, according to documents cited in the lawsuit. This incentive would be in addition to moving stipends required by Florida law, under which CREI Holdings is required to offset relocation costs by offering $3,000 and $6,000 for single- and double-wide homes, respectively. 

CREI Holdings did not respond to Prism’s request for comment.

“That’s not just a guideline, it was a regulation,” Leiva emphasized. “And they didn’t follow it.”

That failure has now become the central message of the campaign. Residents claim that officials signed off on rezoning plans more than two years before the eviction notices were issued, while publicly feigning ignorance and surprise once the backlash began. Leiva alleged that city leaders “did the millionaire a favor” and turned their backs on the working-class families they were supposed to protect.

The city of Sweetwater did not respond on time to Prism’s request for comment.

“The city does not approve or disapprove what a private property owner does with his own property, so he decided to develop it and evict everybody,” said incumbent Commissioner Ian Vallecillo in response to allegations that the city of Sweetwater was implicated in the decision to evict tenants. “We can’t stop [the property owner].”

Vallecillo added that he learned about the evictions the same day as the tenants, and he “lost a lot of sleep” over it, noting that he knows people who have lived in the community. 

“Those candidates, none of those people are prepared for office,” Vallecillo said of the Li’l Abner residents running for commissioners. “They don’t have the qualifications, the experience, the knowledge, none of them have ever been to a commission meeting. So I wish them well.”

When asked about allegations that the commissioners and the mayor are implicated in the decision to rezone the area, Vallecillo abruptly hung up the call.

Incumbent Commissioners Jose Marti and Idania Llanio, who are also running for reelection, did not respond to Prism’s request for comment.

Residents are not just grappling with the trauma of displacement. They’re now also facing health risks after asbestos was discovered in the rubble of recently demolished homes. Almost immediately after residents were told in November 2024 to vacate by May 31, 2025, demolition crews moved in, tearing down trailers that had already been abandoned. 

According to reporting by WLRN, the city of Sweetwater confirmed that CREI Holdings had begun demolitions without proper permits. By March, the park’s owner was cited again for demolishing trailers that contained asbestos, a dangerous carcinogen, without the required environmental testing.

The situation escalated on March 24, when Miami-Dade County issued a cease-and-desist order to the demolition crew. Workers had been caught on camera drawing water from a storm drain to spray down the asbestos-laced debris, a shortcut that potentially spread contaminants and violated safety regulations. The footage was uncovered by a public records request filed by WLRN. 

Teresita Blanco, a longtime Li’l Abner resident who is also running for commissioner, said doctors from the Dade County Street Response team, a street medicine nonprofit, treated residents from the community in April. Blanco said she has had respiratory issues ever since the demolitions began.

“I’ve had to get in touch with [Dade County Street Response] so that the residents can at least see a doctor and get free medicine,” Blanco said. “And it doesn’t just affect the residents who are here but also in those buildings [CREI Holdings] is building, all of that rises up.”

The county has fined CREI Holdings $108,466 for the violation, but that brings little relief for residents still living on the property. 

As residents struggle to make impossible decisions, accepting buyouts as low as $14,000 for trailers they had purchased for $50,000 or more, according to residents, more than half the community fled in the first two months. Many were frightened into accepting less than they were entitled to, often unaware of their rights or too overwhelmed to fight back.

In that leadership vacuum, the idea of running for office was born. Leiva is joined by two other residents who are challenging their incumbents, who are unaccustomed to opposition.

“People came to me and said, ‘The same commissioners who let this happen are going to be reelected because no one is running against them,’” Leiva said. “So I said, ‘Then let’s run. Let’s at least tell the truth.’”

With no prior experience in politics, Leiva launched a bare-bones campaign funded by neighbors, many of whom had lost their homes. The community pitched in to cover the initial $1,000 filing fee, while the candidate contributed $200 of his own money, hoping to recover some to help pay this month’s rent. 

His platform focuses on affordable housing that is actually affordable, Leiva said, in addition to city enforcement of existing relocation policies, and ensuring that working-class families are not erased from Miami’s future.

“People making $10 or $12 an hour can’t survive when rent is $3,000 a month,” Leiva said. “Even at $20 an hour, you’re drowning.”

Igniting a movement

After more than three decades in the Li’l Abner, Blanco has gone from a quiet resident to a passionate advocate, stepping into the political arena with the goal of becoming the community’s next commissioner. Fueled by a deep frustration with displacement, health hazards, and what she calls entrenched corruption in Sweetwater’s leadership, Blanco said she’s fighting to give her community a voice.

“Until the judge tells us that we have to go, we’re not going, because they have to pay us,” said Blanco, a customer service coordinator and former medical assistant who was born in Puerto Rico and raised in New York.

On the eve of the vote, Blanco was preparing to meet with her volunteers. She knew the competition was skewed in favor of the incumbents, but she planned to spend Election Day in one place: Li’l Abner.

“We don’t have funds for anything fancy,” Blanco said. “But we’ll celebrate in our own way, gathering in one of the mobile homes. As long as we’re together, we’re good.”

When asked if she’ll continue her involvement in local politics regardless of the election result, Blanco didn’t hesitate. 

“Once you see all the stuff going on, you want to make a real change. If I lose, maybe I’ll move to another city and run there. I’ll take the experience with me.”

Election Day will determine whether these Li’l Abner residents can turn outrage into office. But no matter the outcome, the campaign has already given voice to a community that has been ignored for too long.

With help from local activists, including a grassroots organizer associated with Florida International University (FIU) and the Miami-Dade County Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), daily protests began just days after the eviction notice.

The organizer’s support helped ignite a movement. 

“He brought a drum, he brought signs—Black Lives Matter, Free Palestine, FIU—and he marched with us,” Leiva said. “He showed us how to organize, and reminded us we weren’t alone.”

And while the fight started with housing, the campaign has grown into something broader: a demand for government that serves people, not developers. 

“This isn’t left or right. This is about doing what’s right,” Leiva said. “If officials fail their duty and no one holds them accountable, they get reelected. We can’t let that happen again.”

Protests and organizing efforts continue. On a blistering hot afternoon in early May, Leiva met with community member and organizer Yesenia Guadalupe and a Miami DSA organizer, who requested to remain anonymous, to canvass in the surrounding neighborhood. As they were about to leave, a neighbor driving back from work stopped to chat with Leiva, recounting her support for Leiva’s movement, lamenting being unable to attend recent protests due to her grueling work schedule. Leiva made plans around printing more flyers and Leiva walked, house by house, speaking to whomever would share a moment of their day. 

“The city handed this land over without a plan for the people who lived here. That was their failure,” Leiva said. “Now we’re taking our fight from the street to the ballot box.”

Editorial Team:
Sahar Fatima, Lead Editor
Carolyn Copeland, Top Editor
Stephanie Harris, Copy Editor